Some Much Need Perspective on WA Hosting (and Comparisons)

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Hosting is cheap...RIGHT?

Well, yeah, there is definitely some CHEAP hosting plans out there. You see $3.96 hosting, $5 hosting, even $10 hosting. These are low quality hosting services offered by the likes of GoDaddy, HostGator or Webs.com and yes, they are cheap...but you get what you pay for.

And these hosts are stuffing you on a server with 1,000's of other domains, domains which are slowing your site down because they are not monitored and domains that leave huge security holes that leave you vulnerable to hacks, attacks, and data integrity issues.

These are platforms that ARE NOT specific to Wordpress nor are they a good idea to host your Wordpress website on.

We have never done "cheap" here at Wealthy Affiliate, and what you are getting here with your Premium membership is sheer quality.

Our Hosting is State of the Art, High Quality, and is Setting Industry Standards.

We have never compromised quality for volume. We could offer a low quality service like shared hosts are offering, but we simply are not in the business of offering anything but what we KNOW to be the utmost quality.

To compare a $60-$100 per year hosting plan at HostGator or GoDaddy to that offered here at WA, is like comparing apples to oranges, or budget, low quality and highly insecure ...to high quality, high performance, fully supported and maintained, and highly secure hosting (that you get here at WA).

There are companies that are offering a similar host quality that we are offering here to Premium members of Wealthy Affiliate and I think you are going to be surprised as to how much a service like this really costs.

Some "Comparable" Hosting Plans in the Industry

The only comparable plan I could find in terms of quality (albeit lower than that offered to you at WA), is GoDaddy's Wordpress hosting WPengine hosting.

How much are they in comparison (for a comparable plan)?

GoDaddy is $76.99 per MONTH. (see details here)
WPEngine is $249.00 per MONTH (see details here)

This is anywhere from 3 times, the 9 times more expensive the price you pay for your entire membership here at WA (based on the yearly membership here).

And these hosts don't include:

  • A highly optimized and simplified hosting platform
  • The ability to MOVE websites from one domain to another
  • The Ability to fire up FREE Websites on demand
  • Full Redundancy (100% backed-up to the minute)
  • The latest and greatest hosting technology (your websites are always hosted on the highest powered servers available)
  • Free SSL on all sites hosted
  • Full Domain and Website Caching and the server level
  • Automated recovery processes
  • Personal website monitoring and maintenance
  • Removal of "rogue" plugins and themes
  • Comment spam management and behavioural assessment (so you don't even get the spam in the first place)
  • Access and integration with SiteDomains (a domain platform exclusive at WA)
  • Daily back-ups included
  • Website integrity updates the continually improve how your Wordpress sites function, based on the latest version of WP
  • Access to SiteContent and over 1 MILLION+ high definition images (completely free to use)
  • Resilient Bruteforce and DDOS protection
  • 24/7/365 SiteSupport

So not only are the true industry comparisons a minimum of 3 times the cost, they are also inferior to the service level that you can come to expect here at WA with the hosting inside your Premium membership.

But This is Just the Quality of Hosting You Get Here..

With those plans you are not getting everything else that is offered to you here.

  1. The Community and the Live Help
  2. Access to Industry Experts
  3. Personal Access to the Owners
  4. World Class Training (1,000's of resources)
  5. Keyword Research Tools
  6. Weekly Live Video Classes
  7. Unlimited Access to our Website Builder
  8. One of the Most Lucrative Affiliate Programs in the World
  9. Ambassadorship Program (Ability to Pay it Forward)
  10. Incentive Programs
  11. Business Productivity Tools (Rapid Writer, Link Tracking, KW Lists)
  12. Access to ALL Future Updates

And this is all included in your membership. And this is ALL you need to create and grow a business. So when you put a "hosting package" alongside a business building and education platform like WA, there is simply no comparison.

And a Little Perspective...

I just wanted to give everyone a bit of perspective on what you are getting here at WA. You are getting a much higher quality service, for a lower price...and this is just talking about the hosting aspect. For a similar host only, you would be looking at minimum of $75 per month!

Hosting is not just hosting and we can assure you that you are getting the highest quality hosting platform here at WA.

With a Premium membership here at WA, you can be assured that you have access to a business building platform that you can run a business off of, grow a business as a result of, and rest easy at night knowing that you are getting the absolute best service in the world and we will continue to push this beyond what it is today.

With each day that passes, your service and your experience here within WA is only going to get amplified in a very, very good way!

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Recent Comments

204

Hi Kyle,
Thanks for your blogs - they are very helpful. I'm trying to find out if WA offers everything that other hosting companies offer? I am considering starting in WA but I don't want to run into trouble if I need to transfer to a different hosting company in the future. I am looking for the most cost effective and reliable platform as well as being future proof for growth capabilities. Is there anything on WA you cannot do - that one might perhaps need in the future? If not, where is the best place to buy a domain name from - so I can start in WA?

It would be great if you have the time to get back to me on this. Cheers, David

Hi David,

I can speak from experience...This is the best site, bar none...I have tried two other educational programs, and neither had what this site has.

Many of the things WA has to offer you will not find at all on the other sites, like access to other members on a 24/7 basis, free hosting services for either 25 sites or unlimited (I have heard different amounts in different things I have read), the chance to get questions answered anytime of the day or not from other members, and even Kyle or Carson at times (they spend a LOT of time here by the way)...

The other prgrams it seemed the main focus was to sell their program, and to be able to do that you had to pay an exorbitant fee...With one program, just having a blog costs 20 USD a month and if you want be an affiliate, 50 USD, and that did not imclude all the training!

Just calculating the hosting fees that HostGator and others charge, you would be saving a bundle by using WA...They typically will charge anywhere from 10-20 USD a month per site! Now you can add sub accounts, but bottom line it will be more money...

I would suggest that you upgrade to Premium and give it a try using the monthly rate...If it is good, then consider going for the annual because you will save more money and bring your monthly cost to about 30 USD...

Good luck!

Dave

: )

I just read up on hostgator. I was about to register a domain just to test them with.
I know some may think this is trivial, but I dont like the idea of having to check my personal email in one place, and my business email from another place, and as far as I know the "@email" here can not be sent to google accounts. The best I was able to do was install Thunderbird on my computer, but that is just another program open on my slow computer. Yeah I intend to replace it this summer, I still dont want to open a program just to check an email.
I have no intention of leaving WA, but I want my email all in one place so if anyone knows of a place that has quality hosting let me know.

For now I am about to try a host with my test site with another party, while keeping my main site here.

PS: I did not know WA would remove broken/rogue plugins for me, but the flipside is that I know how to do it myself now.

Yes, you can forward all your emails here. You can create MANY forward for the same domain, this is not an issue at all and it definitely can be set-up with your gmail account.

I am the same way, I manage all my email through forwards/aliased within one centralized gmail account.

Here is some training on how to do this with the hosting here at WA:

Q: Does each member in WA have their own Hosting IP Address or are we sharing an IP Address? I have Hostgator hosting, and it's ok, but I do think I may have been hacked once. The WordPress training site WPBeginner have been with Hostgator since 2007, and they claim that they have never had any problems with Hostgator. Most hosting providers have the option of your own IP Address with a Dedicated Server but the price is a bit more than shared hosting.

I've had several problems with Host Gator (extremely slow or no service at times, settings that were changed without notification, etc), and finally abandoned them. Carson just blogged that WA has upgraded its server equipment - see Presently, HostGator ranks near the bottom of my list for hosting providers.

Dennis

You may have already heard this, however you can host up to 25 of your own domains here on WA with your membership.

To the best of my knowledge our WA hosting is not shared.

Yeah, all hosting is shared unless you purchase a dedicated server (which means that you manage the server and all the technology yourself if it is truly dedicated).

We have very low limits in terms of "load" that we allow on our servers so that all website run optimally. Unlike Hostgator or Godaddy that stuff sites until they slow to a halt on their servers, because well, that is how they make money.

what happens if you have more than 25?

Hello kyle,
I have have been here for a while, but I'm not getting nearly enough to pay for your prices and it is becoming hard on me. I like my website and I want to continue doing it, but I want to know more options. obviously you are really good here, but what about 1&1 you did not mention that one. Just want to know more.

Share hosting options are the "get what you pay for" hosting plans. They are low quality, the suffer lots of downtime, and if your website gets too much traffic or puts any load on the server, often times they will take it down without warning and boot you off their service.

The make money by assuming you will never use your website and that it will never get traffic. As soon as you do anything with your site, they try to upsell you with more expensive plans. By all means you can use a service like 1&1 or Hostgator, just do know that you get what you pay for.

Hey Jadeseef, I have personally used 1&1 in the past it is an ok hosting platform. I liked that you could have everything in one place from domains to emails etc. However I think that the community, the resources, the education here is more then worth the membership fees. Although I can understand being frustrated when you don't see any financial reward from your hard work. I'm curious as to what your niche is? If you would like for me to share some ideas or help you brainstorm how you can grow your business let me know.

Hi Kyle!
The GoDaddy link points to a page where the maximum fee plan is the "Pro" one, which costs C$ 33.99 per month (US$ 28,77).
And it says "25 websites", which I assume stands for "25 WP installas", either.
Ok; is "On Sale", but otherwise it would cost C$ 79.99 (US$ 67,70).

The WPEngine one is still fine. (The link, not their plan).

Btw... Is there a page where *your* hosting plan is explained in details?
(I mean "Bandwidth limit", "storage limit", "FTP acces", "Server configuration", number of MySQL databases.... etc...)..

Thanks.

Yeah, they are running a 50% off sale right now of around $34 per month. By no means is Godaddy the best host for Wordpress either, they are a "catch all" for domain hosting and they do not have the same sort of understanding of the platform that you will get here (and our many interface tools like SiteHealth, SiteFeedback, etc)

We are going to be rolling out a page with full website details in coming month here that will explain everything, you do get 25 Domains and 25 free websites (wordpress installs, total of 50) here at WA, so double that of even the Godaddy plan.

I had no intention to make comparisons.
It was just for the "sake of information" ;-)

Glad to know you're rolling out that page.
I'm used to build and test website "locally" (on MacOS X Apache own server) and publish them only when I'm sure everything works.
I know I can access the web server via FTP, but what I don't get is if I can do the same with MySQL database (using phpMyAdmin, or tools such as "Sequel Pro").

Thanks for your reply ;-)

Yeah, at this point we don't offer PHPAdmin access. There are many plugins that you can use if you want this sort of access to your DB's in wordpress, I would suggest you download one of these.

Kyle - that would be great. I am getting a lot of benefits with WA hosting and how easy it is to whip up great looking websites in minutes. I would like to be able to offer hosting and a list of tech specs would be great (storage, bandwidth, security, supported scripts, ecommerce support, etc.) Looking forward to seeing the rollout of this. Thanks!

Yeah, most definitely. It will be coming soon with a re-release of the Siterubix.com website. ;)

Very well said. I will remember this. Do you support external software to be hosted here as well apart from wordpress sites only? Need the hosting service provided by your company but wordpress is a little complicated to learn at this point but i do love to acquire more knowledge as well but not at this point as i really need help to get all my websites transfer here so I don't need to have to pay for so many hosting services since I have found WA and the fun community here. I have a good feeling my partnership with your team will last long by hosting my sites here. How to go about publishing my websites via FTPs or CPANELS here?

Thanks this is a good answer and it could solve my current problem. How about getting the ftp username and password, also got to go to Kyle and support for answer or got to wait till my domain name is being transferred than I will be given one ?

When you create your site with your own domain name and transfer the dns to here, you automatically get the ftp username and password.

Yep, that's it. Thanks.

If I want to sell hosting to a local client. Could it be done both ways?

1. For small business simply needing a few page, static-type website...add their domain and site within my account and charge the client a small monthly fee.
2. For businesses wanting more - marketing, support, etc. Sell them a wa membership?

Assuming this - how would you sell the 2nd one as hosting and not an affiliate training academy, community, etc.?

Example - Roy's mechanic shop wants a website, wants descant marketing and seo tips. Sometimes he has time to log into wa and read an article on seo or marketing. But he does not want daily emails about being an affiliate, going through a course, etc. He's not interested in making other money, He simply want to focus on repairing autos, and having his site listed well on search engines.

In my mind, I'm thinking I would sell the account...tell them the back end support is on an affiliate foundation but they do not need to be concerned with all that. Is this how you would explain it? Are there any affiliate banners that are more about hosting than affiliate? I ask because, if someone was trying to sell my company hosting, I'd be confused by all the presenting about affiliate stuff.

Thanks

I am also thinking about this stuff there are loads of options:
1. become a reselller in hosting, I will send you the link
2. Some people host at WA their clients
3. Or I would say show them what WA is about, don't try to be a pushy salesmen
4. Watch all of the local marketing videos provided here. Mostly I watch Jay's videos. I like them but unfortunately a lot of is based on the US and not my country

One thing that folks are doing for local clients is creating them a membership here at WA and saying that is part of their fee. Anyone that is looking for more than just hosting (which is absolutely every business out there), the membership here at WA is right up their alley.

There are tons of different angles you can take with existing business owners as well as anyone that wants to take a passion and turn it into an online business. They opportunities are endless.

Thanks Kyle. Just the answer I was after. I've wondered as to what to do with my clients who just wanted to have their website setup and have a way for them to create and publish content.

WA is not that expensive at all. For example, Bluehost would provide $296 for two years of webhosting and domain name. Sounds cheap. BUT, I was going to be left on my own how to setup Word Press and create/build my site. To get Bluehost to help me setup my site, they have an additional web design service which would cost me $800 to create upto FIVE simple pages. Any e-commerce type of pages will be ADDITIONAL cost!

In WA, it took me less than 10 days to create two websites! Equipped with no less than 5 pages each with written content, photos, photo gallery and various plug-ins for various forms I needed on my sites.

Now to some of my clients, they think I'm now some kind of expert in creating websites!

I just Love it here Kyle!
... good deal ALL the way around.

I had hoped we could upload videos larger than 8MB, and have RSS, but I understand why we are limited - what you ask is very reasonable.

Question: Is it ok to download some of the videos on WA, then upload them to my own Youtube channel?
(... just another variation of linking to WA site directly)

You never host videos on your website hosting, this is not good practice. Hosting videos internally on your website will slow down your website load times drastically, no website (that knows what they are doing) does this and if you are leveraging videos, you should be utilizing the biggest video platform in the world to host your videos (as it will lead to additional exposure. That of course is Youtube.

You can link from your Youtube videos directly to WA, this is something that a lot of folks do.

All Wordpress websites have RSS by default.

Thanks Kyle!
... I meant import a RSS feed (just a couple of links) from somewhere else - but you told me once that was not allowed - it's ok

That would be fine.

Can anyone tell me where we can see technical specifications of WA hosting? With all due respect, I would like to know why in Kyle's words:
1. We tend to have better security
2. What kind of hosting are we using here? I guess not shared hosting but how can I tell? I don't see any of that.

This is important for me as I am interested in doing local marketing and I would like to offer them hosting as a service.

You would probably get a much better answer if you submitted a ticket. I sure do not know the answers.

Hey Daniel,

1. We have specific security solutions in place for Wordpress. We understand in great detail how WP websites can get hacked and we have implemented robust technologies to prevent this from happening from sites here at WA.

Just recently you may have noticed hosts like Blue Host, Host Gator and services like Aweber being down for prolonged periods of times (days). This is the sort of thing we are protecting against. :)

2. You are leveraging our state-of-the-art cloud hosting infrastructure and yes, it is shared hosting but we limit loads by 1/10th of that of other shared hosts (which means there are other websites on the same server instance as you). It is a "managed" hosting environment and we definitely have our clients back in terms of support and overall robustness of the platform here.

Hope this adds some clarity for you. :)

Yes, we are getting a good deal. I just came across an ad a few days ago about email training. They wanted $500.00, just for one seminar session. When I see what some of those other companies are charging, I know I'm getting a good deal. Thanks Kyle and Carson, you guys have done an excellent job with the training and service.

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